'Bullets Over Broadway' gives actor chance to reconnect to Chicago roots
Actor Rick Grossman is glad that "Bullets Over Broadway: The Musical" was booked into the recently re-renamed The Private Bank Theatre for its two-week Chicago-premiere run. That's because the historic venue, which opened in 1906 as the Majestic Theatre, is of a similar vintage to his late grandparents' Chicago Yiddish repertory theater.
"It's very meaningful every time I've had an opportunity to come to Chicago," Grossman said. "It's really where my father and his three siblings were brought up and my grandparents, who were kind of pioneers of touring Yiddish theater throughout North America."
His grandparents' theater was known as The Grossman-Reinhart Co. Among the performers there was Muni Weisenfreund, who later changed his name and found Hollywood fame as the Academy Award-winning actor Paul Muni.
"I want to see what the Chicago History Museum might have about Yiddish theater or Yiddish culture," Grossman said. "And ultimately go to a Cubs game."
But the bulk of Grossman's time in Chicago will be dedicated to "Bullets Over Broadway." In the 1920s-set musical comedy, Grossman plays the supporting role of the harried and cash-strapped theater producer Julian Marx.
"He comes across this play written by a young playwright named David Shayne and the way he is able to get the money to do the show is through a mobster friend by the name of Nick Valenti," Grossman said. "But there are certain strings attached, such as making sure that Nick's girlfriend, Olive, is in the show."
Academy Award-winning director and writer Woody Allen was the main force in adapting his original 1994 film screenplay (co-authored with Douglas McGrath) for the 2014 Broadway musical adaptation. The splashy production featured direction and choreography by Tony Award-winner Susan Stroman ("The Producers," "Crazy for You").
Like the original film, "Bullets Over Broadway" features hit songs that originated in the 1920s including "Tiger Rag," "I'm Sitting on Top of the World" and "Runnin' Wild."
"Bullets Over Broadway" was nominated for six Tony Awards, but it wasn't the smash hit that many had hoped it would be. Nonetheless Grossman is glad that the show is getting a second life via this non-Equity tour that re-creates Stroman's Broadway production.
"A first national tour is very special," Grossman said. "You're only the second actor to be playing a role and not the 150th."
While Grossman has plans to reconnect with his grandparents' Chicago roots, he also feels that Windy City audiences should connect to the historical era created in "Bullets Over Broadway."
"Given the history that Chicago has going back to the 1920s where people still talk about the days of Al Capone and the notoriety of other gangsters, I think that audiences will really gravitate to and love this show," Grossman said. "There's plenty of Tommy gun action."
“Bullets Over Broadway”
Location: The PrivateBank Theatre, 18 W. Monroe St., (800) 775-2000 or
Showtimes: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday (also Sunday, April 24); 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday (also Wednesday, April 27); from Tuesday, April 19, through Sunday, May 1
Tickets: $19-$85